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Cox: NHL draft full of surprises

Leafs take D-man with 5th pick in a wild, unpredictable first round.

Third overall pick, Alex Galchenyuk of the Canadiens, first overall pick Nail Yakupov of the Oilers and second overall pick Ryan Murray of the Blue Jackets pose at the NHL draft Friday night in Pittsburgh.
(Dave Sandford / getty images)

They just stopped celebrating in Los Angeles, and Jonathan Quick just finished stayin’ classy with his salty congratulatory messages.

But the next NHL season — should it begin on schedule, and should it include Phoenix — essentially began on Friday night, which is the way this always works. There’s a 10-month grind to declare a champion, and then within two weeks everyone’s at the starting line again.

This will really kick in when Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, as expected, pick new teams through free agency in about 10 days. On Friday night, however, it essentially began with the NHL entry draft and five noteworthy trades, including one blockbuster.

That one sent Jordan Staal to a family reunion in Carolina and dropped a bomb into the middle of the first round in a draft that, let’s face it, will be fascinating to review in a decade, or less.

The 30 teams, it’s clear, had wildly differing opinions on the teenage talent available, some of which had played very little last season due to serious injuries.

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That included the third pick taken, centre Alex Galchenyuk by the Montreal Canadiens, and the fifth player selected, defenceman Morgan Rielly by the Maple Leafs.

Galchenyuk played two regular-season games. The speedy Rielly played 18 games for Moose Jaw before undergoing knee surgery, just like Galchenyuk. The 10th player selected, Slater Koekkoek of the Peterborough Petes, was sidelined with a shoulder injury in November and played 26 games.

Those are all, even when you consider the wonders of modern medicine, significant leaps of faith.

There were the usual terrific individual stories, such as Mark Jankowksi of Ancaster, Ont., being selected 20th overall from a Quebec private high school, almost unheard of for the NHL draft. As well, goalie Malcolm Subban of Rexdale was drafted by the Boston Bruins where, somewhere down the line, he’ll play against his brother P.K., who happens to play for the hated Montreal Canadiens.

Players rated in the top five picks fell drastically. Anaheim jumped in at No. 6 and took forward Hampas Lindholm, who was projected by exactly nobody as a top 10 selection.

This was a draft that was all over the map, and the result was that when the second round begins on Saturday in Pittsburgh, there will be a large number of highly touted prospects still on the board. The Leafs pick 35th, or fifth in the second round, and they may be able to choose from a group that includes Swedish goalie Oscar Dansk, his countryman Sebastien Collberg, a forward, or perhaps defenceman Matt Finn of the Guelph Storm, rated 16th among all North American skaters.

In Rielly, the Leafs moved to fortify their blue line despite widespread belief they would look for a centre or, at the very least, a forward, with the fifth pick. It came down to the Moose Jaw defenceman or Swedish forward Filip Forsberg, and the Leafs opted for Rielly’s explosive skating speed.

The newest Leaf was immediately tweeted “Congrats” by Leaf forward Joffrey Lupul, who then added, “Now go get me some tape.”

The Leafs have taken defencemen who suffered knee injuries in junior before. Toronto drafted Gary Nylund third overall back in 1982, and he didn’t turn out to be an impact player. Eight years later, they took Drake Berehowsky 10th overall, and while he went on to play 549 NHL games, Berehowsky was never the offensive force from the blue line he was projected to be.

Along with Jake Gardiner and youngster Jesse Blacker, the Leafs could be in the process of putting together a very mobile defence for the coming years. That, of course, won’t help them next year, and it’s expected Rielly is at least three years away from the NHL.

For more immediate help, the Leafs are trying to land goalie Roberto Luongo from the Canucks, but without much success so far.

“We’re still listening,” said Vancouver GM Mike Gillis.

Perhaps, but the Nucks are running out of possible trading partners. On Friday, Philly traded goalie Sergei (Bob) Bobrovsky to Columbus for picks, removing the Blue Jackets from the goalie market.

Staal was sent packing just one day after he rejected a 10-year, $60 million (U.S.) contract from the Pens. Rather than hum and haw like Gillis, Pens GM Ray Shero quickly had a meeting with Canes GM Jim Rutherford at 4:30 on Friday afternoon, and just over two hours later they had a deal.

In exchange, Carolina sent centre Brandon Sutter, the eighth overall pick and defence prospect Brian Dumolin to Pittsburgh, who then used that pick to grab slick, puck-moving defenceman Derrick Pouliot of the Portland Winter Hawks.

Staal will join brother Eric with the Hurricanes and probably get a chance to be a No. 1 centre for the first time after playing behind Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin for six years.

“He’s ready for an expanded role,” said Shero.

The league, meanwhile, seems revved to skip the off-season and get rolling again with the 2012-13 campaign already. Labour matters, of course, may have something to say about that.

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